Keith Hunter Jesperson is an American serial killer who murdered at least eight women across the United States and Canada between 1990 and 1995, primarily along interstate highways where he worked as a long-haul truck driver. Known as the “Happy Face Killer” for his habit of drawing smiley faces on anonymous confession letters he sent to newspapers and police, Jesperson targeted vulnerable women, often hitchhikers or sex workers, whom he strangled and dumped in remote areas. His first confirmed victim was Taunja Bennett, 23, killed in January 1990 near Portland, Oregon. He claimed up to 160 murders but was convicted of eight. Jesperson’s taunting letters, signed with smiley faces, began in 1990, frustrating investigators until his 1995 arrest in Washington after he confessed to killing Julie Winningham during an interrogation. Arrested on March 30, 1995, Jesperson pleaded guilty to multiple murders, receiving life sentences without parole in Oregon, Washington, and California. Now 70, he remains incarcerated at Oregon State Penitentiary, occasionally corresponding with true crime enthusiasts.

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